In a lengthy article, the Jerusalem Post reports that on Monday a 3-judge panel of Israel's High Court of Justice ruled that women must be allowed to take certification exams on Jewish religious law (halacha) administered by Israel's Chief Rabbinate. Plaintiffs contended that barring them from taking the exams is discriminatory. According to the Post's reporting:
Passing the exams and holding such a certificate often grants communal legitimacy, as they indicate widespread halachic knowledge.
These certificates are not only symbolic and carry soft power; they have real financial implications. Any regional job openings consider the first-tier certification – along with at least six years of yeshiva study after the age of 18 – to be equivalent to an academic degree. This is applicable to nearly all public clergy positions, said the ruling, authored by [Justice] Sohlberg.
It also includes financial benefits. For example, public-school teachers who teach “religious studies” are eligible for higher salaries because of the equivalency to academic degrees in their training....
As a publicly funded body, the Rabbinate is bound by the distinction the law makes between authorities that are halachicly driven and those that are not. Given legal precedent that notes the sensitivity of the often-ingrained discrimination against women in halachicly based authorities, the legal tradition is to approach such issues with extra sensitivity.
The Rabbinate’s position that its authority to ordain rabbis necessarily extends to dictating who can take the exam “is not an acceptable one,” Sohlberg wrote. Its authority does not extend that far, he said....
The Rabbinate said the claim of discrimination was not accurate, as its exams are intended for rabbinical positions, and being that women cannot serve as rabbis, it is not really discrimination.
This was not a stated purpose of the petitioners, Sohlberg wrote.
